Young women supporting one another to achieve and succeed

Kianu Glasgow is a former Peabody Young Leader and was also shortlisted in the Champion of Young People category in this year’s Peabody Young People’s Award.

Published: 06/03/2023

Kianu tells us about the work she’s done to bring young people in the community together to help them succeed and thrive.

I’m one of the co-founders of Dipped In Creativity Engagement (DICE) which is a social enterprise focused on youth and community events and creative programmes. I focus on working with young people, offering employability support and training, as well as event producing and hosting.

I founded Dipped In Creativity Engagement with my twin sister Aaliyah, as we knew from our own lived experience how important it is for young people to have a safe space to learn, grow and access support and opportunities to reach their full potential.

The importance of support

When I was in high school, I was fortunate enough to have a progression coach who supported me for five years to overcome many hurdles and challenges. For a long time, I didn't know what I wanted to do as a hobby or as a career.

My coach helped me to engage in creative activities and development opportunities, which led me down the route of getting into youth work and setting up my own youth-led social enterprise! Through DICE, I am working with my sister to provide opportunities and pathways for others to find and fulfil their inner potential.

Becoming a Peabody Young Leader

Working with Peabody has helped my sister and I scale and grow our offer in so many ways. During 2021, we delivered an online ‘Side Hustle Enterprise’ pilot as well as a ‘Get Into Events workshop’ to Peabody’s residents in east London during. We’ve worked closely with the Peabody’s youth and community grants teams to access small pots of funding for our youth-led events such as our ‘Vision Board and Goal Setting’ event earlier this year.

We’ve also assisted young people to apply for the Peabody Young Leaders Grants to invest in their own community ideas and projects.

Our most exciting work with Peabody though involves focusing on capacity building, where we’ll be working closely with the Brent team to deliver different creative workshops and activities to young people within the local borough. This partnership and support from Peabody has come at a great time, and will be one of our key focuses this year so that we can provide more mentoring and creative opportunities to young people in the area.

Bridging the gap

I am on a mission to bridge the gap between young people and their wider communities. Being involved in my community is very important to me, as these are places where I grew up and felt safe and connected. I was fortunate enough to experience many opportunities, which supported my own personal journey of growth to become the person I am today.

The thing I’ve enjoyed the most about setting up my own social enterprise, is the feeling of it not feeling like a job. It has felt effortless at times as I have been able to create, shape and develop a fun and meaningful business alongside my sister. We’re passionate about it, committed to it and proud of it.

We’ve shaped the vision and mission for DICE by having the freedom to engage with young people and the wider community. Because of this process, they’re now part of our DICE family.

When me and Aaliyah set up DICE, we were 21 years old and both faced many challenges - the biggest one was not was not knowing how to turn our hobby and interest in running opportunities for young people into an actual organisation and social enterprise.

We didn't understand how to set up a business, create partnerships, access funding or to generate an income to deliver our goals. Although we were motivated and ambitious to accomplish our ideas and goals, we didn't have the resources, tools or mentors around us to help us. It’s taken us time to nurture and develop our ideas, and to make our dream social enterprise a reality.

Top tips to other young women

My biggest piece of advice to other young women who would also like to make a difference is to try lots of different things to identify your passions…and then just do it! If you don't know where to start, reach out to a youth or community focused service who can help you to find the best ways to start your journey to make a difference. The one thing I would have told my younger self is to trust and believe in yourself as much others do trust and believe in you!

Kianu Glasgow

Co-founder of Dipped In Creativity Engagement, CEO and Events Producer